Looks like Retep whipped last turn. Heh,...might have to revise that 'minimalist defense mentality' that I proposed. 3T axes from Turandot are supercool!
Tech thread means that he's spending no time on the game.
If he's sloppy, a chariot or two could get us some good opportunities. His little foray into our land with warrior + scout is a blessing in disguise. Had he played his cards right those 2 axes would have been tougher to defend against with little warning. Nice of him to give us a heads up.
I'm really really hesitant to whip the gold off, unless we literally can't survive without it. It's 8 beakers out of 25 per turn we're making as an empire! Delaying the third city by a few turns is much less costly than basically any number of turns we're not working the gold.
I'm a little worried about the extreme all-in play here. He piles some units on the "Staging" site, then roads NE and moves twice, and then he can attack the turn after. Unfortunately we have no way to see that staging tile. Since we have the first half of the timer we can't whip in response to his move either. (By the way I regret nothing playing first every turn. It's a major disadvantage in the game to do so, but I value facilitating the game for others and not being "that guy", more than the in-game advantage...)
He left his warrior on the forest plains hill - it has a 5% fortify bonus.
Next turn we have 2 archers and 1 quechua in Barbiere. 1 more quechua joins the turn after that.
Unfortunately I didn't play the workers well again, and didn't realize until later that we wouldn't have a turn to whip against the ideal attack. I should have had a position where we could chop to Barbiere next turn, but I messed it up. We can chop to Turandot with the forest 1W of it, but that's not as valuable right now.
Anyway, if you think we absolutely need to whip Barbiere right now, or the next turn, you don't have much time to convince me. It's a big economic setback to do so but an even bigger one to lose the city obviously.
Well it looks like we'll be facing 3 axes given that civstats whip. He's got 1 archer + 3 warriors one of which we can see.
Seems pretty likely that he'll leave 1 warrior in each city sending the full 3 axe + 1 archer + 1 warrior at us as early at T47 if he's dedicating his workers as well. He could add a second warrior worst case scenario. His archer will be next to useless on the attack against our Quechas so we don't have to sweat that too much.
To make sure that I understand this:
T44 start: our move. Forces= 2 archer + 1 quecha. Whip Turandot.
T44 end: Retep sends this 3 axes + archer + 1 warrior to Staging tile.
T45 start. This is our last chance to whip. Forces = 2 archer + 2 quecha. Axe NNE of Barbiere.
T45 end: Retep roads NW and lands SW of Barber.
T46 Start: Last chance to move troops into the city. Turandot axe makes it? Forces = 2 archer + 2 quecha + 1 axe.
T46 end: Retep attacks with 3 axes + 1 archer + 1-2 warriors.
Yeah, that's pretty ugly. I don't think that we have any guarantee of winning that. If the RNG rolls his way, we'll have nothing to stop a promoted follow up attack.
Unless, I'm missing something, a little too close for my tastes. If what I've wrote down is correct, i'd say that you need to whip. Let the overflow go into an archer and then laugh him off or maybe convince him to head towards the 3-warrior army Baccus.
Just to add to that,..showing him that axe next turn could be key to turning him around. Whipping Barbiere could be our lowest cost option. Missing out on a couple of turns of gold-commerce could save us a small fortune in hammers that are replacing our military.
This is our last chance to provide a deterrant to the attack - that 'we've got metal' signal is vital to staying out of this war.
(August 27th, 2013, 17:01)MindyMcCready Wrote: Well it looks like we'll be facing 3 axes given that civstats whip. He's got 1 archer + 3 warriors one of which we can see.
Seems pretty likely that he'll leave 1 warrior in each city sending the full 3 axe + 1 archer + 1 warrior at us as early at T47 if he's dedicating his workers as well. He could add a second warrior worst case scenario. His archer will be next to useless on the attack against our Quechas so we don't have to sweat that too much.
To make sure that I understand this:
T44 start: our move. Forces= 2 archer + 1 quecha. Whip Turandot.
T44 end: Retep sends this 3 axes + archer + 1 warrior to Staging tile.
To give him the turn jump, he'd need to have enough time to get two workers into the forest staging tile and road it. We saw nothing there when scouting. I don't think he makes his move on T44, but we'll see.
I have whipped Turandot (on T44) but am holding on Barbiere for now. Sorry I just value the gold way too much and I think we can hold this. If he shows himself this turn you can say a huge "I told you so".
Quote:T45 start. This is our last chance to whip. Forces = 2 archer + 2 quecha. Axe NNE of Barbiere.
T45 end: Retep roads NW and lands SW of Barber.
T46 Start: Last chance to move troops into the city. Turandot axe makes it? Forces = 2 archer + 2 quecha + 1 axe.
Yeah, that's pretty ugly. I don't think that we have any guarantee of winning that. If the RNG rolls his way, we'll have nothing to stop a promoted follow up attack.
Agree. The saving grace is that if he doesn't actually take the city we'll have 1-2 fresh reinforcements coming out for the next turn to clean up.
Quote:Unless, I'm missing something, a little too close for my tastes. If what I've wrote down is correct, i'd say that you need to whip. Let the overflow go into an archer and then laugh him off or maybe convince him to head towards the 3-warrior army Baccus.
So nothing is on our doorstep yet. Defenses on turn 46 are (2 archers, 1 axe, 2 quechua). On turn 48 we add two more axes to the city.
The quechuas are pretty useful against a raw numbers attack since they defend against anything but axes, with an innate +50% city defense bonus against warriors.
That scout is probably darting in and out to keep tabs on the city defenses. He won't see the axe this turn since it's not on the power graph yet. He may rage at the mapmaker as soon as he realizes we have copper in our capital, and aggressively planted without knowing this.
The fast oracle plan is basically shot. I think with two more axes we're basically stabilized and hopefully Retep will realize he's not getting in, though he may be quite literally in an all-or-nothing mindset. (This is of course what you said would happen. )
More graphs:
Ichabod is doing what I wish we could - peaceful expansion micro. I give us zero chance to win this game at this point, having to defend against a committed rush. We had a lucky draw but there are a lot of players in this game more skilled than me and Ichabod is one of them. This doesn't bother me: I'm not a very competitive person and would still like to be relevant as long as possible.
I think Retep is planning rapid expansion and wants to have enough axes to be safe from barbs. Yeah, that's it.
I take it to be a 9K increase.
+6K for an axe almost certainly
Then
+3K could be a barracks
Alternatively the +3K could be AH (2K) + a pop regrowth (+1K). Retep had a score increse of only +1 so that's probably not it unless he simultaneously whipped. Do you know how much AH translates into score?
Ugh,...I'm going to have to start reading T-Hawk articles.
(August 29th, 2013, 07:51)MindyMcCready Wrote: Not sure about that last power increase.
I take it to be a 9K increase.
+6K for an axe almost certainly
Then
+3K could be a barracks
Alternatively the +3K could be AH (2K) + a pop regrowth (+1K). Retep had a score increse of only +1 so that's probably not it unless he simultaneously whipped. Do you know how much AH translates into score?
Ugh,...I'm going to have to start reading T-Hawk articles.
You know you want to. Ancient techs are worth 6 points in score per era. (It's actually 5.988 but in practice the first ancient tech is 5 and the rest 6). You probably know that only every second pop growth contributes to power, but on this map each pop is worth from 1-2 score because of rounding. (For the exact formula read the above.)
I hadn't tried reading the pixels like you're doing but it's valuable info, thanks! To me a barracks sounds like a tricky amount of hammers for him to have this early, while building an axe at the same time. It could just be an axe + archer too.
It's a big economic setback to do so but an even bigger one to lose the city obviously.
